Snips & Snails & Kitty Cat Tails
by Bad Luck Bug
Summary: "My love confession got rejected today. He's a gentleman. But sometimes I'll hear him break a pun on his friend. They're always so ridiculous that I think 'it's gonna be easier to talk to him today' because he's a bit like you."
1. Prelude

"W-w-will you, um, g-g-go out w-with me?" It's the third time Marinette's said it, but the first time in the correct order.

Adrien smiled sympathetically. "Did someone set you up to this?" The girl stammers endlessly, and half his time with her she's got this look that just _knows_ he's secretly an axe murderer.

"N-no!" She threw up flat palms, making eye contact til the floor begged her back. "I've l-" she swallowed. "-liked you for a while, and um..."

She fidgeted in place.

"Listen." He put a hand to her shoulder. "You don't have to be forced-"

"It's not! I'm forcing you-! I'm not forcing-! I'm. Not. Being. Forced!" She closed her eyes, a long breath escaping her nostrils. "I'm probably forcing myself, a-actually. I'm sorry, I'm awkward. The truth is... I haven't been able to talk to you as well as I'd like, because I've had a crush on you. It's my first time l-liking someone like this, and it's made me... so tongue-tied."

Adrien's cheeks tingled. Suddenly he had to look anywhere but her. Marinette's raw truth enveloped him in an unexpected foreign comfort. A... crush? The world creaked to a halt. He's familiar with the term. A fluttering heart that ventures anywhere from love to like, but more likely longing from afar. Starry eyed girls his bodyguard holds back when he attends high end functions. Oh. Time reasserted itself harshly, a mundane taste settling on his tongue as he looked her over from a different viewpoint.

From there on it all felt so clinical. "I appreciate your feelings," he said, a script Nathalie's prompted him on running on repeat in his mind. "I'm flattered, honestly. However, I can't return your feelings."

She blinked rapidly, eyes flitting from the walls to the ground to her shoes. Marinette swallowed and licked her lips. "Thank you for listening, Adrien." Her hollow words carved into his professional facade. His awareness kicked into high alert, and he discovered it's different. She's not a face he'll never see again from a crowd. He knows her. They're friends. He should have thought this through more, because she's not taking it in a way he can let slide. She's not flailing into dramatics. She's not demanding another answer. She's Marinette. She's sincere, she's honest, and the empty classroom is suffocating. "I'm sorry to put you on the spot like this, I should have considered that you wouldn't like me like that."

He's taken her raw words and thrown them against his shell of an exterior. It's unfair. The least he can do in return is offer his rawness in return. "It's not that." He scratched the side of his head, then readjusted his collar. "I... can't accept your feelings because I like someone else. It wouldn't be right."

Marinette's waiting, he's not sure how much he should say but... he's her celebrity crush in his own right. So she'd understand. She has to.

"I like Ladybug." Her eyes widen. He's unsure of how to take that so he fixes his eyes on the window. "We've met a few times." _Every other day in costume_. "She's so stubborn in what she does, it's irresistible." He meets her eye and smiles. "It seems farfetched, but I'm hoping she'll give me a chance one day." _Give Chat Noir a chance_.

"Oh," the strain is still there, if not worse in her voice. "Yeah, Ladybug is... she's great." Marinette scoops up her bag then heads for the door. "Well, now that's out of the way maybe my tongue will untie itself haha."

"You're off to a good start already." Adrien laughs back.

They wave to one another and she's gone.

* * *

"Alya?"

"No way. Not now. She pushed me to do it. I tell her and it'll make us both upset."

"Your parents?"

"I don't want them to know yet either..."

"Then please do not allow your thoughts to stagnant until you have comfort. It's dangerous, Marinette."

"I'm not stagnating."

"As long as you can split your focus your emotions will not be pungent enough."

"And I am. I'm sewing and- ow."

"You continue to pause, Marinette."

"Because he turned me down for me!" Marinette flung her chair back as she stood, her fabrics tossed to the wall.

"Marinette!" Tikki held her paws forth, wishing to console.

Marinette gritted her teeth against the unbidden tears. "All those times you've told me that I'm what makes Ladybug. That I'm her, and I'm not."

"In Adrien's defense, you've never spoken to him with the same confidence as you do with everyone else."

"Yeah, but," she trailed off weakly. "He see's me with everyone else. It's about the same as watching Ladybug from afar like him and all of Paris does." She sniffled. "And you said..."

Tikki descended to Marinette's desk. "Oh, Marinette..."

Marinette could feel it. From the double time of her heart beating in her fingertips to the thrumming at the base of her skull. She stared at her computer screen, a picture of the eiffel tower. The absence of his photos somehow a stronger reminder than them actually being there. She's standing at a wall by not breaking down, and the pain of his rejection is only rotting her slowly instead of all at once.

"Why can't being Ladybug harden my emotions or something," Marinette mumbles between her teeth.

"The situations you face have sculpted your will to do what is right into your greatest weapon. You're always ready to stand up and say no when it needs to be done, and for that to have become your strongest trait, I am proud." Marinette stared unseeing at the ground, her mouth slightly ajar, but pacified, and it gave Tikki an idea. "Your powers as Ladybug grant more than that. Your physical boundaries in this persona have broadened as well."

"What? So I can jump roofs while not in the suit?"

"Perhaps. Why not try?"

Marinette scoffs. "Cause I could slip off and die?"

"We can transform if it comes to that. A fall from a roof would hardly be a problem for Ladybug."

Tikki tried to be optimistic. It is a dangerous stunt, but getting her adrenaline going would keep Marinette's mind off of the empty walls.

* * *

Author's Babble

No I haven't forgotten day 17 (balcony visits) of Marichat May, work and college decided to team up and pull back my progress. That and another chapter must be completed in That One Time Chat Noir Became Marinette's Biggest Fan since ch. 3 of it is balcony visits- or part of ch. 2, dunno, haven't got there yet. But I am catching up! I will get everyday, I must!

As for this chapter, it was already written, and the next is more geared towards day 18, which I will publish later today.


	2. Daredevil

She's gonna do it.

Marinette craned her neck over the edge. It's a narrow gap. Ish. Narrow for Ladybug. Too far to any other human on Earth. The fall would - in fact - kill her, but it also gives her enough time to transform and swing away should the problem arise. She sucked in a breath between her lips. She can do this. Marinette took measured steps back, coming to the middle of the roof she's chosen. Then she ran. Feet pounding. Arms swinging. Faster, faster, and—

Nope!

Marinette pin-wheeled her arms at the edge of the roof. Her stomach dropping and swooping and reminding her that she should have eaten something as it lurched. She lost balance and fell onto her bottom.

"I can't do it!" Marinette shouted.

"And what is it you were trying to do?!"

Marinette started, twisting her body to see

"Chat Noir!" She faked a wide smile. "Wh-what a coincidence to see you up here!"

He stared at her, angst. His shoulders sagged into himself, and he closed his eyes tight at the ground. Staring a moment longer, his chest heaving, she realized he looked winded. Had he rushed over when he caught her on the roof?

For ready use, Tikki had hidden in her pigtail. She patted said spot, and received an affirmative hum. Then she looked back at Chat Noir. He hasn't said much, and his guard is completely down. Which is understandable, Marinette's not a threat. She could be. If she think's anymore about...

Marinette could trip him right now. This close, her arm just so, she could do it. With Adrien kicked back to the farthest recesses of her mind she's found the most random topics to latch onto. Like how she'd been meaning to sew that flowery patch for Manon to apply to her overalls. Tikki encouraged Marinette's disjointed thoughts. Told her to act on them if only to stay out of Hawk Moth's radar.

Chat Noir wouldn't appreciate falling on his tail.

Marinette lays back, her hands clasped at her stomach as she stares up at him. This embodiment of bad luck.

"You know what the worst curse would be?"

He doesn't answer. He's stiff and poised like she'll dart at any time. Or roll down the slant of the roof. She might. He looks like he'll give chase. Cat and mouse.

"If anytime you described something, you had to say _sometimes_ at the end." She held up her hand. "I have pale skin sometimes— which makes since if I get tans. My eyes are blue sometimes— if my eyes could change color, contacts maybe. But if you say something like I wear clothes sometimes, it sounds suggestive, then you're a creep."

"What are you doing up here?"

"Parkour." His tail is wrapped around his foot. She yanks it down and, reluctantly, he sits. "I'm brave sometimes."

He covers his face with his hand. "God, Princess, I thought you were going to go..."

The word lingers in the air between them.

"What an assumption."

"You couldn't have made that jump!"

"You don't know that. I can do a lot of things. I can fight monsters."

"Marinette." He's leaning over her, his legs criss-cross above her head. She doesn't know what her face looks like, but it feels relatively blank. While he's an open book. Plainly worried, and looking... "Are you okay?"

"No." She admits with an ease she doesn't feel. "What about you? You look a bit edgy." She tries not to smile. It doesn't work. He scrubs a hand down his face and she can see the muffled quirk of his lips as well.

"Marinette," he grumbles. "This isn't a joke."

"It's funny sometimes." Her voice is so small the wind nearly steals it. She looks at him. Her partner. There for her even when he doesn't know it. It makes her lighter somehow. "I'm getting my mind off things. My love confession got rejected today—" her face nearly crumples before she schools it into normalcy by staring at the clouds that look like rocks. "—he's a gentleman. But sometimes I'll hear him break a pun on his friend. They're always so ridiculous that I think _it's gonna be it easier to talk to him today_ because he's a bit like you." She meets his eye and hastily averts. He's too open, and it's alarming because her heart hasn't had time to close yet.

"He reminds you of me?" Chat swallows, and leans in, forcing her to meet his eye. "And that makes it easier?"

"A little," she softens. "I mean, look how much I've told you already." He's speechless a beat too long so she fills the silence. "It's not his fault that I'm upset though. It's mine. I'm an idiot for asking in the first place, but my friend was right, I've been crushing too long to not have done something." She shakes her head. "Maybe I waited too long or not long enough. From now on I should do things when I wanna do them." He's still transfixed when the fire sparks in her eye, and it's full effect has him drawing in a gasp. "I can do whatever I set my mind to."

Marinette gets up and walks around him. Chat's rooted on the spot. So when he turns to ask, "Princess?" she's running. His eyes blow wide as she passes, and he turns in the nick of time to catch her launching herself to the roof ahead. His legs go numb. Not even sure if he can move or if his body's his own as he takes in what may be the last sight of Marinette he'll ever see.

Marinette collides roughly with the roofs edge, her upper body clinging, and legs dangling in a futile attempt to get leverage.

In a surge of energy from his chest to his throat he yells, "hold on!" Chat flings himself forward with the words. Scrambling on all fours before he can use his staff to vault over.

However she's already pulled herself up. Marinette's laid over the gravel, a sloppy smile spread across her cheeks as she presses her arm over her eyes and chuckles.

It's childish but he wants to kick her. She shouldn't be happy. Somewhere in his boots is his stomach, he feels queasy, and she's _laughing_.

Then again, she is okay. She's in one piece and that makes him smile if only in relief. He falls into his earlier position, legs crossed, and plants his hands on his thighs to regain composure. "You're unbelieveable."

Chat's ear flicks to her laugh as it turns watery. All bravado gone, her lips tremble. Apparently his stomach can sink lower than his shoes. Her breath hitches and she faintly sniffles. She's a quiet crier. Like him.

Should he leave? Chat's slouching over Marinette as she weeps, it feels invasive, his figure casting a shadow over her through the dreary curtains of dusk. Despite what she says he still feels at fault. But why breakdown now? Why breakdown at all? She looked fine after confessing. But then, if she wasn't fine, would she have told him? She kept face if only to set him at ease. And it worked. It worked too well. She's too nice for her own good, and it pricks his heart like a pincushion.

The times he'd cried when his mother left, what is it that he wanted? His tail smacked against the gravel. His mother back, of course. But thinking back. Alone in that monster of an empty room. His own sobs echoing back, reminding him that he's his only company. It would have been nice if his father could have at least been there. Chloé was never a person to ease his burdens, but maybe friends can do something... It doesn't feel right to up and hug her though.

Tentatively he reached for her, and rested his hand against her fringe. Somewhat detached, he watched his black claws burrow gently into her hair, creating tiny rows, before dragging lightly over her scalp. Marinette gasped, hiccups receding the longer his hand remained. Her breathing evened out, coaxed by his strokes, he even indulged in a light back and forth scratch here and there.

When her hand fell limply to the side, so did he from a stupor. It's night. She's asleep. How long had they been like this?

Chat's nerves soothed when the time on his baton indicated it hasn't been longer than an hour. He readjusted his position, moving a particular rock that had been digging into his leg. She's asleep on this god forsaken landscape. How? Maybe it's not a luxury, but he scooted forward, lifting her head to lay it onto the junction where his calves crossed.

Marinette tears didn't last long enough for her eyes to swell, still a tell-tale red scattered at the apple of her cheeks up proved evidence enough of her sadness. How on earth did she climb to that roof? He thought he knew Marinette. Well, he thought he knew her enough to put her into a box. As he's learned there's usually a box you can put someone in, and they generally stay there... No. That's not true. Meeting Nino is the exception. Nino's more than music, energy, and overused catchphrases. He's patient, even encouraging when it comes to Adrien's happiness. Chat tilted his head at her delicate snore. There's more to people, isn't there? A trick compartment at the bottom of everyone's box. He wouldn't call people two faced, but after witnessing this he's confirmed there's a deeper side if you pry hard enough. And what's under her trick compartment?

Marinette's insane.

By all known laws of nature she shouldn't be sleeping right now. She should be— he doesn't know what she should be. Normal people don't hopscotch rooftops, cry, then catnap after a rejection. Was it to prove a point to herself? About doing what she sets her mind to? She also said Chat reminded her of... Adrien. An admission that's spooky, yet... endearing. Like she'd held his puzzle pieces and almost glimpsed the whole picture. Had she admitted to Adrien what she did to Chat Noir he might have reconsidered rejecting her.

Chat's cheeks fizzed to an onslaught of shame, it burned to a rising boil, and his vision dimmed from the heat. He shook his head. That... didn't hurt before.

Why did he reject her? More importantly, why didn't he think it through? He opened the door to her welcoming smile and slammed it in her face. Of its own accord his hand resumed its earlier ministrations through her hair. If he opened the door again she wouldn't smile, she wouldn't even be there, would she? He's scared he may never be able to open the door again to find out.

Chat's vision focused when he realized he'd been staring at Marinette's drooping - but awake - eyes.

A bloom of happiness laced her words, "that felt nice, thank you."

He flushed and restrained from yanking away. "N-no problem. Are you better?"

Languid from sleep she showed no signs of moving soon. "Much."

"I should get going..."

"'Kay."

"You're not going to do anything crazy?"

"No."

"Promise?"

"Yes."

"Alrigh— Princess you're not even trying to hide your crossed fingers."

She giggled.

His heart skipped. Tampering down his flustered energy, and failing, he cupped her head to lay it back to the gravel as he unwound his legs.

"Um." He stepped back, bowed his head and gave a small, swift wave. "Bye."

She offered no farewell, only a smile that unnerved his heart. He tripped backwards before vaulting away.


End file.
